Designer Spotlight: Samantha Faye Jewelry

Samantha Freedman, a Newton girl whose family is in the  jewelry business (Downtown Crossing Boston diamond shop Freedman Jewelers is her dad’s), actually started out as a corporate lawyer before pursuing design. And even then, she did it on her lunch hour. I profiled Samantha (“Sweetest Charms”) in the Boston Globe Magazine earlier this month.

SAMANTHA FAYE FREEDMAN JEWELRY DESIGNER BOSTON

Samantha’s first charm was a clothing hanger. After people bought them right off her neck, she designed five more fashion-inspired pieces which comprise the Closet Collection: a button, a zipper, a key, a knot, a pair of lips, and a bow. All seven are still in production, and the bow has since become one of her biggest sellers. She does all her pieces in sterling silver, gold plate, and rose gold plate.

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Samantha-Faye-in-Globe-Mag

Boston Globe Magazine January 6, 2013
photos in the magazine by Dan Watkins

 After the closet came the Menagerie Collection, which today includes 20 different adorable animal charms, all available in large and small sizes. She started making the animals and matching mini mes when her friends started having kids, thinking they’d be cute mommy/daughter accessories. (She makes charm bracelets too.) They were a hit, but with an even broader audience. Sorority sisters, and all sorts of ladies loved them.

samantha-faye-elephant-giraffe-charms

samantha-faye-monkey-pendants

Samantha-Faye-Owl-Pendants

If the large and small lobsters aren’t telltale signs, the Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket island charms, plus the anchor, making up the Islands Collection, gives Samantha away as a New England girl.

samantha-faye-massachusetts-map-charm

Samantha’s newest collection Modern Classic, includes nature-inspired shapes, good luck charms, and other whimsical silhouettes. Again, all available big and small in three finishes.

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Samantha behind-the-scenes at the Globe shoot at Succara on Beacon Hill, the showroom that represents her line.

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BOSTON GLOBE MAGAZINE COVER JAN 6 2013

Designer Spotlight: Dror Benshetrit

I’ve been to New York several times recently to interview industrial designers for Design Milk’s “Where I Work” series. Today we published the profile of Israeli designer Dror Benshetrit, founder of Studio Dror (and cousin to fashion designer Yigal Azrouel—swoon). You can read the full interview and see the official photos on Design-Milk, but I wanted to share the Instagram shots I took on my iPhone while I poked around.

Dror Benshetrit at his desk in his Garment District studio.

His preferred sketching pens.

Front studio/showroom space with oversize QuaDror structure.

Peacock chair in felt (Love!)

detail

Volume.MGX lamp

In the workshop

more QuaDror supports

Stainless steel mezuzah for Alessi

necklace

Photos by StyleCarrot

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S H O P P I N G 

Try It Trivet for Alessi, $100 at Studio Dror.
Volume 60-10-12-3-12 Sculpture, price upon request at Studio Dror.
Vase of Phases for Rosenthal, $120—$325 at Studio Dror.
Tron Armchair for Cappellini, price upon request at Studio Dror.
Connection Mezuzah for Alessi, $80 at Studio Dror.
QuaDror Wall, price upon request at Studio Dror.
Peacock Chair for Cappellini, $7,174—$10,308 at Studio Dror.

Designer Spotlight: Timorous Beasties

Yasumasa Morimura “Dialogue with Myself 1,” 2001
on  Timorous Beasties, “Glasgow Toile ” printed linen, 2004.

Last fall, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston opened the new Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art. We went with the kids, in a fit of “let’s get them some culture.” 

Turns out one of them had a serious fever by the time we got home. But anyway . . .

I was thrilled to turn a corner to see an entire wall sheathed in Timorous Beasties’ “Glasgow Toile.” I knew that the Scottish designers, Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons, were talented guys, but I hadn’t realized they had reached such sophisticated levels of recognition. Turns out, their work is also at the V&A in London and the Cooper Hewitt in New York.

Detail

I have been meaning to look into how the “Glasgow Toile” fit into the larger exhibition as a whole, as well as the relationship between it and the  Yasumasa Morimura painting that hangs on it.

(Yasumasa Morimura, by the way, is a Japanese painter who borrows images from historical artists, ranging from Edouard Manet to Rembrandt to Cindy Sherman, and inserts his own face and body into them. I just read the article in New York Magazine about an African American superstar artist working in Japan who has a similar schtick, but I shan’t digress any further.)

Although many of the works in the gallery have been moved around  since my visit, including the Morimura, the fabric is still there, and will be through the fall. What’s on it today? Interestingly enough, Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #282, in which she portrays herself as Medusa.

My own simulation: The Cindy Sherman photo that hangs on the wall of “Glasgow Toile” at the MFA.

This morning, I talked wtih Edward Saywell, Chair Linde Family Wing, Head of Department of Contemporary Art & MFA Programs. He was charming and informative, with an appealing  British accent. Although he doesn’t know the TB designers personally, he went to college in Scotland at the time they first set up shop in 1990, and has always been a great fan.

He told me that the theme of the gallery is “Quote Copy Update,” so all of the works in the space are about artists reacting to or emulating prior works of art, sometimes breaking traditions. Some look to the past to create something fresh with new technologies. Saywell says, “The Timorous Beasties ‘Glasgow Toile’ fits beautifully in that context. They looked at the old toiles of pre-Revolutionary France, and effectively created a toile for the 21st century.”

Like Morimura’s work, which is based on Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits,  Sherman also looks back into history for inspiration. Saywell points out what now seems obvious: Sherman’s work looks back to the Old Masters. Making it even more fun, he told me that it was photographed for Harper’s Bazaar. He says, “She looks like a sexy centerfold, but has cast herself as Medusa.”

Seywell explains that they wanted to show the Timorous Beasties fabric as something that belongs in the museum in its own right, but they also wanted to get across the idea that since it is commercially available , one is likely to have something hanging on it in a domestic setting. He says, “We could have just displayed the roll of it. . .   but we wanted to underline the drama and the excitement of the fabric by covering the entire wall.”

Why am I blogging about this today? One, Timorous Beasties has been on my brain. I just ordered a few samples of their papers—“Butterflies” and “Thistle”—for a design project I’m working on.

Top: Butterflies   |  Bottom: Thistle and Thistle detail

Two, I was asked to write a blog post about a London store I’d like to visit as part of the launch of the new Shopikon London site and app.  Shopikon is a very well-done shopping guide (I know, having written a number over the years myself!), with summaries and photos of the best stores in Barcelona, London, New York, and Vienna (Paris and Berlin to follow).

Timorous Beasties, 46 Amwell Street, London

Obviously, Timorous Beasties is my top choice of London shop. As if I don’t want to get my eyes on this stuff already, Shopikon further lures me in with: “Part showroom and part art gallery, you could spend hours gazing through the collection.” Yes, please.

Designers Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons

The papers are hand-screened and printed. I would love to have them do a “Deconstruction” column for Design Milk. We did one with Brooklyn wallpaper darling Flavor Paper that was a lot of fun.

London-based design blogger (maybe we’ll meet!) Katie Treggiden of Confessions of a Design Geek sent me these images of Timorous Beasties “Thistles” concrete tiles that she spotted at Clerkenwell Design Week. They would be fantastic in a powder room, or in a kitchen with gray-grouted subway tile, installed behind a stainless steel range. These would be especially satisfying to experience IRL (in real life).

Designer Spotlight: Bone Sculptures by Celia Nkala of Perception Park

I first learned about Parisian-based sculptor/designer Celia Nkala’s line from Perception Park from a post I wrote for Design Milk. Instantly smitten (with her work and her… she’s so pretty), I struck up an email correspondence. She told me a bit about what prompted her to sculpt and work with bones and even sent me a two necklaces (made out of dog teeth!) to see how they’d play in the American market. Last week, she emailed me with photos of new creations, this time around, done in black.

Vertebrae Vase

The Ossements collection was inspired by a real human hip bone that Celia found in a flea market in Brussels about a year-and-a-half ago. She says, “I was fascinated while the others were disgusted.”

To make it more “acceptable,” she sculpted the shape in porcelain. The Iliac bone was the first sculpture she had ever created. She borrowed a human skeleton from the anatomy department of a medical university to use as a model for the other pieces, which include vertebrae and sacrum.

She recently introduced shiny black versions of several of the works. Here is a sampling:


Vertebrae Votives

Iliac Bones in Enameled Porcelain

Sacrum in Enameled Porcelain

Rib Cage Sculpture in Enameled Porcelain

Celia is holding a real human hip she found in Belgium; the catalyst for the collection.
The horizontal bits on the vertebra vase are actual bones. Nkala found a stock of cow’s sphenoid bones (the cow’s last vertebra) by chance in a Chinese shop in Paris, and bought the entire stock. She says, “I discovered that earthenware biscuit is visually similar of the bone material, so I have associated them directly with ceramics.”
The annotated diagram above shows that the vertical section is a piece of enameled porcelain, and the horizontal vertebrae are real animal sphenoid bones.
 Celia sent me two dog tooth pendants. I wear them all the time, and show them off at every opportunity. Definitely a conversation starter.  A dentist mom at a potluck said she wasn’t sure they were definitely dog teeth, so I wore them to the vet when it was time for Oakley’s check up. (Oakley is my very sweet cat.) She confirmed, they’re definitely dog teeth. (Not that I doubted you Celia!)  Do you guys like them? They’re not available commercially yet, and I know Celia would appreciate any input.

Animal Sphenoid Bone Keychain   |   Coccyx Pendant   |   Bony Pelvis Tote
Vertebrae votives all stacked up.

Designer Spotlight: Madeline Weinrib Textiles as Clothing

Argentinean designer Soledad Twombly, designer of the label SOLE by Soledad Twombly, has just launched a new collection that incorporates the fabrics of  ikat queen, Madeline Weinrib.

The collection’s fifteen pieces celebrate Twombly’s love for exotic Central Asian textiles, mixing Weinrib’s signature handmade ikats with Twombly’s signature rich Italian fabrics like velvets.

There was a trunk show in NYC last week, and one is scheduled for Rome in early November.

Soledad Twombly in her Madeline Weinrib designs.



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Soledad Twombly

Sole Twombly’s ateliers in New York and Rome

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